Forensics expert: ID process to be tough task

July 09, 2009

Even to a scientist known worldwide for his expertise in skeletal remains and mass grave sites, there was something unusually cruel about the unearthing of perhaps hundreds of people at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip.

On June 30, the Cook County medical examiner's office called on Clyde Snow, 81, a noted forensic anthropologist from Oklahoma, to examine a small collection of human bone fragments that authorities had recovered from Burr Oak.

Snow -- who has worked on some of the most famous forensic cases in the world, including John Wayne Gacy, King Tutankhamen and others -- discovered that the pieces of skull, arm, leg and vertebrae belonged to several people who likely had been buried within the last 50 years.

Snow determined that the brittle bones had cracked during the excavation process, but that their outer shells did not show the typical wear and tear or embedded bits of soil commonly seen in bones buried for more than five decades.

"Everything was consistent with what you would see when you disturb coffin burials," Snow said from his home in Norman, Okla. "I had no idea then how enormous and complex a case this was."

That came days later, Snow said, when he walked the grounds of Burr Oak with a sheriff's investigator. He said bone fragments were littered over an area of the cemetery that was as long as a city block and maybe 300 yards wide. So many remains were hidden beneath vegetation and topsoil that it was impossible to determine how many bodies had been dug up, he said.

The task of identifying those bodies at Burr Oak now falls upon the FBI. Snow, who is not assisting in that effort, said bone fragments that are 50 years old should be capable of providing investigators with DNA, but that those levels may not be sufficient to make a positive identification. He speculated authorities might also look at dental records if they're lucky enough to find a complete skull and jaw.

Whatever genetic information they recover will have to be matched to DNA from living relatives willing to participate.

"They'll have to make a database of relatives with DNA from blood or hair or saliva," Snow said. "It's going to be a tremendous job in terms of scale. It's just a massive job."